Gets Planted
"Gets Planted" is the tenth episode of season three and the thirty-sixth episode overall of the animated children's series The Magic School Bus. It originally aired on December 8th, 1996. Plot The class is putting on the play Jack and the Beanstalk, but Phoebe, who is in charge of props, can't build a fake beanstalk, let alone grow a real one. In order to do the show, Ms. Frizzle takes the class to The Magic School Bus and Phoebe tells her that she should grow the beanstalk herself. So Liz uses the bus to turn Phoebe into a bean plant with a paucity of leaves. Liz waters her and Phoebe tries to think big to grow. But nothing happens. When the class realizes that Phoebe needs food, Keesha tries to feed her a bag of chips. But Phoebe tells her she's not hungry for people food. So the rest of the class ponders the kind of food plants need and how they get it. So Ms. Frizzle takes them to The Magic School Bus to find out what plants need to grow, leaving Liz to keep an eye on the garden, giving her the microscopic plant-o-graph to do so. When the rest of the class enter The Magic School Bus, Ms. Frizzle shrinks The Magic School Bus into size and accelerates it into the soil and under a sweet potato plant. Once inside, the class comes across a soil mite and roots of the plant, which are growing due to getting enough food. The class notices that the roots are sucking up the water and when Arnold states, "It's good thing we're not any smaller, otherwise, we'd get sucked up too", Ms. Frizzle shrinks The Magic School Bus even smaller than before. The Magic School Bus goes into the water and the class notices that the roots are growing root ears. The Magic School Bus ends up getting sucked up along with the water and Phoebe watches in horror as she feels she's going to stay a plant forever. The Magic School Bus ends up inside the root of a plant surrounded by water and the class informs Phoebe that plants derive water from the soil rather than food. So the class continues to navigate through the root and Phoebe then catches a glimpse of the other students entering the auditorium to watch the play. Liz hides Phoebe by putting a box over her so that she is inconspicuous in the students' eyes. Phoebe watches through the screen of the plant-o-graph to find the The Magic School Bus has made its way inside the plant's stem and shoots up. Ms. Frizzle thrusts The Magic School Bus faster so it goes higher in speed. Just then, Phoebe starts to become weak and the bus ends up inside one of the plant's leaves. The class exits The Magic School Bus and they learn that leaves look a lot different from the inside out. They learns that the dark, green blobs that make the leaves green are called chloroplasts. Keesha notices an opening below and Ralphie, being the food expert he claims to be, takes a whiff, only to fall off and narrowly saves himself from falling in. A gust of air suddenly shoots out from the hole and blows Ralphie back up. The class then learns that the leaves are bringing in fresh air. Despite learning all of this, the class is still perplexed of what kinds of food plants eat. Little do they know, the students are waiting inside the auditorium and Phoebe is feeling hungrier. The class tells her to think about the weather as the clouds recede, exposing the shining sun. The class view the chloroplasts circulating through the leaves and Ms. Frizzle offers them spacesuits as they use them to travel inside them. They notice that the chloroplasts are heading for the sunlight and Ms. Frizzle informs them that they are experts at catching the sun's rays. The class also learns that the chloroplasts soak the sun in and the sun gives them energy. The chloroplasts also take in air and water as well. When Wanda gets sprayed by white substance, she exits the plant's cell wall and tastes it to realize that it is sweet. The rest of the class exit the cell wall and get a taste of the white substance themselves. They surmise that it is probably sugar that is food for the plants, meaning that plants make their own food, with a mixture of air, water, and sun. They inform this to Phoebe, who is feeling very weary due to the box blocking the sunlight and air. So the class returns to The Magic School Bus and escapes out of the plant and outside of the garden. They approach the box and lift it, only to realize that Phoebe is missing. Liz has brought Phoebe in the backstage and the class finds her there. While they attempt to provide Phoebe sunlight, Ms. Frizzle stalls the audience and Liz uses The Magic School Bus to transform it to a crane and uses it to open the ceiling window to expose the sunlight to Phoebe. As Phoebe struggles to make any food, the play starts to where a boy named Jack (played by Wanda) who lived in poverty with his mother (played by Keesha). Phoebe then feels the water coming into her roots and stem. The play continues with Jack selling the cow (played by Ralphie in the front, Arnold in the back) in deference to his mother to make money. Ralphie and Arnold then remind Phoebe that she needs air and open the holes inside her leaves to breath it in. As the play continues, Jack decides instead of selling the cow, he should trade it for magic beans, offered to him by a seller (played by Tim). Unfortunately for Phoebe, she can't feel the sun. When comes the part where Jack's mother throws the beans out the window, Keesha reminds Phoebe to use her chloroplasts to suck in the sun. But Phoebe struggles and Ms. Frizzle then gets to the part where the plant grows over night. So the class reminds Phoebe to open up her leaves, but Phoebe is too scared to do so. So Keesha encourages her to open her leaves and she succeeds, growing as high as the building. As the play ends, the class gets an encore and they congratulate Phoebe for her performance. Phoebe states that she owes it all to the water, sun, and air, the three ingredients the plants use to make their own food. Liz uses The Magic School Bus to transform Phoebe back into a human again and she climbs down from the plant. Arnold offers her a maloblaster, and Ms. Frizzle concludes "Fee fi fo fum, only plants chow down on air, water, and sun" as the class laughs. Watch Episode Trivia *This is the first time one of the students is turned into a plant. *"Goes to Seed" and this episode are the only two in the original series about plants, and both had Phoebe as the central character due to her fascination of plants. *The beanstalk appears again in "Gets Charged" in Ms. Frizzle's yard. *It is revealed that Phoebe's biggest fear is being on stage. *This is the only episode to explore inside of Phoebe's body, though part of her body in the facial regions was explored in "Goes Cellular" for only a short moment. Gallery IMG 1352.PNG Phoebe.jpg Grow.jpg Gro.jpg Changed ba.jpg Category:Episodes Category:Episodes focusing on Phoebe Category:Episodes focusing on Keesha Category:Episodes focusing on Wanda Category:Season 3 episodes Category:Life Science Episodes Category:Life Lesson Themed Episodes Category:Episodes on Plants Category:Episodes with No Guest Stars Category:Ecology Episodes Category:Episodes on Energy